Latest ‘Bluebook’ has ‘bonkers’ rule on citing to artificial intelligence

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Synthetic Intelligence & Robotics

Newest ‘Bluebook’ has ‘bonkers’ rule on citing to synthetic intelligence

By Debra Cassens Weiss

September 25, 2025, 11:52 am CDT

Up to date: If you’re uncertain about how and when to quote content material generated by synthetic intelligence, a brand new quotation rule is unlikely to clear up the confusion, in response to consultants who spoke with LawSites.

The twenty second version of The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Quotation, launched in Might, features a new Rule 18.3 for citing output from generative AI. Critics argue that the brand new rule “is basically flawed in each conception and execution,” LawSites stories.

Critics embrace Susan Tanner, a professor on the College of Louisville’s Louis D. Brandeis College of Regulation, who known as the brand new rule “bonkers” in a put up at Medium.

The rule requires that authors citing output from generative AI, corresponding to ChatGPT conversations or Google search outcomes, save a screenshot of that output as a PDF. The rule has three sections—for big language fashions, search outcomes and AI-generated content material—and has barely differing quotation guidelines for every.

One downside, Tanner mentioned, is that the rule treats AI as a citable authority, relatively than a analysis device.

“What would a wise method to AI quotation appear like?” Tanner wrote. “First, acknowledge that in 99% of instances, we shouldn’t be citing AI in any respect. We should always cite the verified sources AI helped us discover.”

Within the uncommon case by which an AI output must be cited, the creator ought to keep in mind that the quotation is documenting what was mentioned by generative AI, not the reality of what was mentioned, Tanner mentioned. She supplies this instance: “OpenAI, ChatGPT-4, ‘Clarify the rumour rule in Kentucky’ (Oct. 30, 2024) (conversational artifact on file with creator) (not cited for accuracy of content material).”

Jessica R. Gunder, an assistant professor on the College of Idaho Faculty of Regulation, offered one other instance of an acceptable quotation to generative AI in her critique of Rule 18.3 posted to SSRN.

“If an creator wished to focus on the unreliability of a generative AI device by pointing to the truth that the device crafted a pizza recipe that included glue as an ingredient to maintain the cheese from falling off the slice, a quotation—and preservation of the generative AI output—could be acceptable,” she wrote.

Cullen O’Keefe, the director of analysis on the Institute for Regulation & AI, sees one other downside. The rule differentiates between massive language fashions and “AI-generated content material,” however content material generated by massive language fashions is a kind of AI-generated content material.

In an article on the Substack weblog Jural Networks, he steered that one interpretation of the rule governing AI-generated content material is that it applies to issues corresponding to photographs, audio recordings and sound.

He additionally sees inconsistencies about whether or not to make use of firm names together with mannequin names and when to require the date of the technology and the immediate used.

“I don’t imply to be too harsh on the editors, whom I commend for tackling this concern head-on,” O’Keefe wrote. “However this rule lacks the everyday precision for which The Bluebook is (in)well-known.”

Up to date Sept. 25 at 2:34 p.m. to precisely cite Cullen O’Keefe’s level about massive language fashions. Up to date Sept. 27 at 8:02 a.m. to appropriate Jessica R. Gunder’s title.

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